Japanese and Chinese Students Fight in Shanghai

Chinese cyberspace is aflame with reactions to a violent confrontation between Japanese and Chinese students at Shanghai International Studies University. The October 20 incident sparked an angry mob of Chinese students which had to be dispersed by police. ChinaSMACK has pictures, as well as translations of the original post and comments on the Tianya BBS (both the Tianya post and comments have been deleted by Chinese authorities):

On October 20, 2008, about 10 P.M., over ten Japanese students were getting drunk and causing a disturbance in the school square. Their noise could be heard from every corner of the campus, which made the boys living on the 9th floor of the boy’s dormitory extremely upset. To protest against the Japanese, the 9th floor students sprinkled some water on the Japanese, resulting in the ten Japanese directly charging into the dorm to beat the two boys so severely that they had to be sent to the hospital.

After the beating, the 10 Japanese immediately fled the dorm room, and the students who heard the news immediately rushed downstairs to confront the Japanese students. At the time, the situation was chaotic. The police immediately dispatched special police to escort and evacuate over 10 Japanese from the school. Not only was the square swarming with patriotic students, I estimate there were approximately several hundred people. Over 10 police vehicles came one by one to maintain order, with everyone standing around watching each other for about 20 minutes.

Under the direction of several students, the students sang the national anthem, marching to the international guest house [the dormitory for international/foreign/study abroad students] to continue their protest against Japanese people. However, the police blocked off the entrance to the international guest house. At this time, we could see Koreans also hanging up their Korean flag. As the student protests increased, there were some foreigners upstairs in the international guest house (it was too dark to see clearly) throwing glass bottles down, causing the situation to escalate…only after the person in charge of the school immediately put forward that the first three students who knew what happened come forth and communicate with the Japanese did the university students calm down and behave themselves.

An angry crowd forms after a group of Japanese students allegedly attacked two Chinese students at Shanghai International Studies University.

China’s Internet censors are cracking down hard on discussion of the incident:

Note: The above translated post was reformatted from the original into separate paragraphs. When this incident happened, many BBS forums quickly deleted every post. Originally, I had decided not to do it because it was impossible to get any information and comments before it was deleted. However, the above original post and following comments from different BBS were available for awhile the next day for me to gather the information. Other netizens and students give more details in the comments. – Fauna.

In keeping with the strident nationalism of China’s ‘angry youth’, many of the translated comments by Chinese netizens bemoan the incident as yet another national humiliation and aim considerable vitriol at the Japanese students involved. Read more about the “angry youth” (愤青) and their “new nationalism” on CDT.